Thursday, January 2, 2020
www.berlincitizen.com
Volume 22, Number 44
Local VNA faces financial challenges By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen
The Berlin Visiting Nurse Association, a town-run home healthcare agency, is facing increased scrutiny of its finances after years of struggling to meet costs and increase the number of clients it serves.
Tara Nyari and Michael Urrunaga carry goods out of the Pistol Creek clubhouse during the Youth and Social Services Department's annual holiday distribution event, which provides families in need with toys, food and essentials donated by locals. Photos by Devin Leith-Yessian, The Citizen
Town distributes food, toys By Devin Leith-Yessian The Citizen
The Pistol Creek Clubhouse was transformed into an offshoot of Santa’s Workshop for the Social and Youth Services Department’s annual holiday distribution held just days before Christmas. With around 200 of the department’s clients receiving food and toys inside the Spruce Brook Road clubhouse, around 20 volunteers buzzed between tables stacked with paper bags labeled for each family. Jan Serafino, who has been volunteering for around eight years and used to run the event, said the distribution has a fun atmosphere and a lot of goodwill. “It makes you feel good to be able to help those who
Norm Margnelli, left, and Ron Filipek collect bags of food for a local family during the holiday distribution event.
are a little less fortunate and we do have a lot of those in Berlin,” she said. Berlin residents Sharon Reckert and Margaret Bishop, who have been volunteering for five and three years respectively, said the
event is a great way to become connected and make new friends. They helped run the toy distribution, tracking down the right bag of presents when a family’s number was called. See Distribution, A16
Town Board of Finance Chairperson Sam Lomaglio believes the solution to lagging revenues is to reduce the VNA’s funding. He made the comments at a finance board meeting in November when VNA Administrator Wendy Russo presented her strategy for increasing income, which centers on expanding marketing to patients in surrounding towns.
providers like Hartford HealthCare at Home, Lomaglio said the VNA should focus on serving a smaller number of local residents. Lomaglio said he is also concerned the VNA has failed to make significant progress on growing its census — the number of patients it’s caring for at any given time — to a minimum of 80, a goal that had been set during the municipal budget process in the spring. During the Board of Finance meeting, Russo said the census was around 70 and noted that even the goal was below the 120 patients they estimate would be needed to break even.
“… It’s time for the Board of Finance to step in and “We can no longer use tax- do what we do best — repayer money to fund the organize and save money (VNA),” Lomaglio said. for the taxpayers,” Lomaglio said. Town Finance Director Kevin Delaney said the Cuts would come amid a VNA has seen some sucparadigm shift in federal cess under Russo’s leader- funding ship, which began in 2017. The increased pressure He pointed out the VNA comes as the VNA is has reduced its deficit from $735,000 in the 2017 preparing for what Russo called the biggest changes fiscal year to $589,000 in to Medicare payment the last fiscal year. The structure in 20 years. agency is, however, running a larger-than-expect- "The forecast is there will ed deficit during the curbe a major impact on rent fiscal year, which behome care throughout the gan in July. country,” she said.”The "Year to date through October, the VNA has lost $290,000. That's $100,000 (more) than last year at this time," Delaney told the Board of Finance. Arguing that the small town-run agency cannot compete with for-profit
biggest impact is going to be on small home care agencies."
The change means payments to home health care providers will be based on diagnoses and services paSee VNA, A13